


Circuitry

by Kass



Category: Jewish Scripture & Legend, תנ"ך | Tanakh
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 15:48:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3295982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kass/pseuds/Kass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miriam was elbow-deep in the water purification system when Elisheva came running. "Abba says I have to but I don't want to!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circuitry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hagar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/gifts).



 

> When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron and said to him, "Come, make us a god who shall go before us, for that man Moses, who brought us from the land of Egypt — we do not know what has happened to him."
> 
> \-- Exodus 32:1

 

 

Miriam was elbow-deep in the water purification system when Elisheva came running. "Abba says I have to but I don't want to!"

Miriam very carefully did not flinch. If she knocked these chips out of alignment the station might be dry for a week. She gestured with her head toward a patch of carpet. "Sit, take a breath, and tell me."

Obedient, the girl sat, though her breathing was still labored. "I don't want to," she said again.

"Don't want to what?" Surely Nachshon wasn't trying to marry her off already? The girl hadn't bled.

"Give up my handheld," Elisheva said, and gulped a breath of air. "To your brother."

"He's back?" Miriam asked, without thinking, and then realized her error. "You mean Aharon."

Elisheva nodded.

"What does Aharon want with your handheld?"

"He needs circuitry," Elisheva said.

The sensor readout gave the familiar pattern of beeps which meant she'd fixed the problem. She withdrew her hands and replaced the bulkhead.

"No one's going to make you give up your handheld," she promised.

But as they approached the main dome Miriam's unease grew. There were at least a dozen women outside her quarters, and their body language was defensive. This wasn't just Nachshon making strange demands. Something was very wrong.

As they approached, the women all started shouting. "One at a time, I can't make sense of it when you're all talking at once. You," she said, pointing at Shoshanna, Eliezer's wife. "You first."

Shoshanna took a deep breath and launched in to the story.

Miriam couldn't believe her ears.

* * *

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Miriam waved her hand at Aharon's door and it obediently opened for her.

Her brother blinked, startled by the brightness of the corridor's synthetic daylight. "Calm down." He held out his hands placatingly.

"Don't you even start that with me." Miriam noted, with grim satisfaction, that he didn't argue. "What's this about you asking all the men to bring you their women's tech?"

"The people are panicking." Aharon shrugged.

"The _male_ people are panicking," Miriam corrected.

"That's what I said."

"It really isn't," Miriam muttered. But that was an argument they'd had before and she wasn't in the mood to have it again.

"They want me to make them an AI."

Miriam stared at him. "You're serious."

"They were going to riot!" he argued.

"I told the women there had to be some misunderstanding." Miriam sat down heavily. "But there isn't. You really intend to do this."

"They need direction."

Miriam snorted. "The signs and wonders weren't enough?"

"People forget."

"The women don't," she said pointedly. " _Our_ firstborn were spared." The best geneticists in the 'verse couldn't have made such a cleanly-targeted plague.

"They're panicking," Aharon repeated. Stubborn. She could tell from the set of his jaw that he'd already made up his mind. "We haven't heard a word from his shuttle since he left. They think he's not coming back."

"So you're going to make them something to follow." She let the skepticism show. "Because you're such a programmer. Why don't you get Bezalel to do it?"

She could see that one hit home. Aharon was envious of Bezalel's talent.

"Because the people asked me!" Now he was getting angry. "I can make them something simple. To keep them under control."

Why had she even bothered? Once Aharon was in one of these moods, there was no convincing him of anything. Even when she was right.

"He's going to be furious with you," Miriam said sweetly, pushing herself to standing. "And I'm having no part of this."

"I need their circuitry," Aharon snapped.

"And you can have it," she retorted. "But don't expect the women to be happy."

"I don't care whether or not they're happy."

"Do you even hear yourself, little brother?" Miriam pushed her way out of his tent, not waiting for his response.

* * *

One of the women pressed the comm button and tapped the coordinates of the dome where Aharon and the men were holed up. They heard whooping.

"Shut it off," someone yelled, and the comms went quiet.

"They're all drunk," Shoshanna said.

"Or possibly just stupid," Chanah muttered, and several women laughed.

A few children were crying in their mothers' arms. The red dome was packed with women, both bio- and chosen, and children played with toy bricks and silicone dolls in the play corner.

"What's She going to do?"

Miriam was gazing out the windows into the black and didn't see who asked the question. It was one of the girls, old enough to worry but still too young to wed. "The Holy One?" She sighed. "There will be retribution, but not against us." Everyone knew what she meant. Their fathers and brothers and husbands would bear the guilt.

Some of the mothers clutched their young sons tighter, as though they could protect them from what they would become.

"I wish your brother would come back," the girl said.

"I do too," Miriam told her. She gazed up at the clear night sky, the infinite spatterdash of stars.

 _Please_ , she prayed. _Think of Your daughters, and show mercy._

If Space answered, Miriam's ears weren't attuned to hear.

 

[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=2ls8s9v)


End file.
